Jailbreak | 2016

36 hours. No money. The aim: get as far away from university as possible. Ready?

Jailbreak is a pretty simple concept. Teams of 2 or 3 people. 36 hours. Same starting point. Same goal of raising as much money for charity. Same aim to get as far away from university as possible. It's a hell of a challenge but thats what society Raise and Give (RAG) is all about. 

When I came to my current universities applicant day I was sitting in a talk all about university life. There were two second years who were giving us pre-freshers a taste of what September- and really the next three years- had in stall for us. 

The boy giving the talk spoke about societies and how to really thrive at university he encouraged us each to join at least one. He spoke about a charity society and a challenge he had completed the past February called 'Jailbreak'. 

I perked up and excitedly drank in all the information about racing away from university in the name of charity. What's more, his team had managed to make it to Paris. My mind boggled with this casual remark; you could leave the country?! Absolutely, in fact it was considered failure if you didn't. In that moment I knew this was the last factor to swing my decision to make my now university my firm choice. 

Upon arriving at university I eagerly signed up to RAG and waited for the Jailbreak event to arrive. One of my flatmate was similarly keen to do it as was one of her friends so that made our team which we un-ironically called 'Not Fast, Just Furious' and then spent the weeks leading up to the big weekend obsessively researching how to get as far as possible. 

It's no exaggeration to say that Jailbreak is hard. Trying to get anywhere without using your own money and relying on the generosity of strangers is a new and challenging concept. Understandably people aren't so keen to part with their hard earned money when students are begging to buy plane tickets to get out of the country. We were laughed at, ignored, rudely spoke to and even taunted. It's 36 hours of pushing yourself both physically due to the lack of sleep and travelling but mentally also as every knock back chipped away at the hope of getting far away. 

Within 2 hours we had raised enough money to get a train to London.

Within 10 hours we had raised enough money to buy flights.

Within 12 hours we had bought return tickets to Athens, Greece. 

Within 25 hours we had landed in Athens.

Unfortunately, this is where our journey ended as we didn't want to spend all the money we had raised and due to a restriction on certain countries that were off limits due to conflict, Greece was as far as we could go.

Still, at the 36 hour mark we were in our apartment in Athens eating pizza and watching the countdown run out. For a first time attempt I could not be prouder that we managed to make it to Greece all by fundraising and the generosity of strangers.

We didn't win out of the 80 odd teams but our grand total was £1,200 which all went to three amazing local charities and we had the most incredibly and unforgettable time.
What else would we have done on a weekend in February anyway?